NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is mounting a legal challenge to a bill passed by the City Council that forces New York City’s public school system to pay a $10,000 bonus to low-paid teacher aides.

The City Council passed the bill last month with enough votes to override a mayoral veto — leaving Mamdani with few practical options to stop the measure, which he opposed. Earlier in the day, the mayor let the bill lapse into law without his signature.

His spokesperson then said he planned to file a lawsuit in an effort to block the payout later on Wednesday.

“We will not allow the political process to replace the collective bargaining table,” Matt Rauschenbach, the mayor’s spokesman, said in a statement.

“The City is filing a lawsuit to protect the right of every union to negotiate on behalf of its members, to fight for the workplace they deserve and ensure that workers — not politicians — determine their own futures. We will work towards a quick resolution that respects workers, protects the City’s finances, and ensures that the Council does not interfere with collective bargaining in the future.”

Before the Mamdani administration announced the lawsuit, the Council and the United Federation of Teachers, the local union that represents the public school paraprofessionals, pledged to defend the law if necessary.

“I’m proud that every member of the Council voted unanimously and on a bipartisan basis to pass the RESPECT Check Act,” Council Speaker Julie Menin said in a statement. “This law is both the right thing to do and the fiscally responsible thing to do,” citing 1,600 paraprofessional vacancies that she believes contribute to the city being sued for unmet special education services.

“We are prepared to engage in a legal fight for the RESPECT check and the paraprofessionals who keep our schools running,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the head of the UFT paraprofessional chapter, Priscilla Castro, wrote in an email Wednesday morning to members.

The law sends quarterly installments of $2,500 next year to paraprofessionals, whose starting salary is about $32,600. The Council and UFT have said persistent low wages have led to a staffing shortage felt most acutely by students with disabilities.

Mamdani has said under New York labor rules known as the Taylor Law, pay must be negotiated at the bargaining table, not through Council legislation. The mayor enthusiastically supported an earlier, more costly version of the bill on the campaign trail, but changed his tune after he started governing.

The checks come with a price tag of $325 million over one year, two fiscal cycles, according to a Council fiscal impact statement. The payment is one-time and not used to calculate pension benefits.

Rauschenbach, the mayoral spokesman, said the Council’s legislation “sets a dangerous precedent” by letting politicians work around union bargaining.

He added the one-time payment model “does not solve the underlying, long-term pay inequities facing paraprofessionals.”

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